A little over a month ago, I wrote an article about the sale of RH.com, a domain name that Media Options sold for an amount that was not disclosed. It appears that Media Options acquired the name May of 2011.

If you visit RH.com, it currently forwards to the Restoration Hardware website. A Whois search confirms that Restoration Hardware, Inc. is the registrant of the domain name. I do not know if the registrant that was listed after Media Options represented Restoration Hardware or if it was a quick flip to the company.

If you aren’t familiar with Restoration Hardware, it’s an upscale home decor company with stores around the US. I wonder if they will continue to use RH.com simply as a forwarder or if they will begin using the shorter (and easier to sell URL) in its marketing materials.

About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has sold seven figures worth of domain names in the last five years. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest.

I see that as a potential huge conflict of interest for Media Options and other brokers.

When original RH.com seller approached them, I am sure he expected them to achieve the highest possible price for him in exchange for commission.

Instead, it looks like Media Options lined up the buyer at a high price, then bought the name for themselves at the lowest possible price, then re-sold the name at probably several hundred percent markup.

I think it is extremely unlikely they bought the name without already having a buyer in place since they financed the purchase.

Regardless, brokers that claim to represent sellers should never be buying names for themselves or their friends.

@j
you might be right on media options but the best part of the deal is it has fallen to the right hand … The best domain for Restoration Hardware that money could buy…
Congratulation to both parties for successful deals and last but not least to elliot who has posted on his blog.

RH.com was owned by DomainCapital – probably because someone they were finacing defaulted on the domain, however, i can not confirm that. It was offered to us for purchase, NOT for brokerage and we bought it in an all cash deal. I dont know why you think we finance it but you are simply wrong and should stick to the facts.

There was no conflict of interest at all. And to clarify further, we did not have a buyerlined up, we bought RH.com as an investment and in the end it paid off.

Also to be clear, we ONLY buy domains that are for sale publicly, from owners who we approach or from people who offer domains to us for sale. We have never and will never buy a domain which has been given to us for brokering unless it is clear to both parties what the intentions are. For instance, sometimes an owner needs to sell very fast and the market is not responding. If we feel it is a good investment we may make the owner an offer. But everything is 100% transparent.

apparently, Restoration Hardware is the process of changing it’s name to simply RH (like RL for Ralph Lauren) as they are attempting to get into the apparel sector as well as furniture and want to heavily increase website commerce vs retail.

There’s got to be something extremely satisfying about these kind of end user sales – Andrew has been smart enough to acquire several LLs, so who’s to say this won’t happen again (and again)? I seriously believe that you’ll be hearing more about big LL sales down the line – companies are fast wising up to the value of these domains – they command instant respect and credibility and you can’t substitute the convenience and ease of access. Winning investment all round!

“It is likely that the Domain “LG.com” bought in 2009 by the Korean 78 Billion Dollar Electronic Conglomerate LG
Corp from the British Football Millionaire Sir Andy Booth (previous owner of the website LG.com = Live Games)
reached a price said to be higher than $100 Million. Until 2009 LG Corp only owned the domain “LG.net”.”

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